Iran International
Iran’s security forces shot and killed a 24-year-old protester during demonstrations in the city of Yazdanshahr in central Iran, a source close to the family told Iran International.
Soheil Zilabi, a resident of Yazdanshahr, was killed on Friday, January 9, 2026, after security forces opened fire on protesters in the street, an informed source told Iran International.
The source said that Zilabi was present at the Yazdanshahr protests on January 9 when security forces shot him in the head on Motahari Boulevard.
He was taken later that night to Fatemeh Zahra Hospital, where he died, the source said.
According to the source, security forces handed over only Zilabi’s bloodstained clothes to his family and told them to go to the Bagh-e Rezvan cemetery in Isfahan to receive his body.
The family went to Bagh-e Rezvan for days and Zilabi’s body was handed over five days later, the source said.
“Soheil was an extremely kind and lovable young man,” the relative said. “His mother raised Soheil and his two sisters with great hardship,” the source said.
The source added that Zilabi had returned from military service about a year and a half earlier and worked as a car paint color-matching assistant, leaving for work at 5 a.m. and working until 5 p.m.
